pr-media-blog.co.uk

A few titbits;

•  DJ Collins, Google’s Head of Comms, has recently been outed, firstly here and then in PR Week,  as David Miliband’s ‘media man’. He’s the guy guiding Joe 90 on a road to media adulation to match his mentor, Tony Blair’s rise in the mid 90s.  So why was DJ part of Gordon’s speechwriting team? My source says it was a clever move to get Miliband’s top spin-meister into the tent and focus Miliband’s camp on the common aim. May be that’s why Miliband was so careful in his speech not to be seen as throwing too much red meat to Gordon-baiters?

• In those three weeks while Gordon was on holiday Southwold District Council got more coverage than the Labour government. Team Gordon seemed to forget that just because the PM is ‘out of office’ doesn’t mean that political journalists switch to become sports journalists. They still have space to fill so why did they let the Tories fill it for them? Andy Coulson is clearly more aware of how to fill a newspaper than Brown’s spindoctor, Damien McBride. I understand that McBride was berated in the bar of the Midland Hotel at 3am this morning and just ‘didn’t get it’.

• There’s increasing talk that the Mirror’s Political Editor, Kevin Maguire, may finally relent and take up the media role at Number 10. The Party wants an attack dog, who understands the issues, understands the press, understands the Party and will agressively go after the Tories. Kevin has Labour stamped through him like a stick of rock. He’s a Party member and his Mum plays an active role up in the north east I believe. He’s also extremely bright and a brilliant journalist. He’s always said he couldn’t do it as he would never want to lie to a journalist. He’s thinking if he doesn’t do it now he might never do it. And he wouldn’t need to lie!

• And finally well done John Prescott. He’s the nearest that Labour’s got to the ‘Straight Talk Express’ and now he’s no longer in Cabinet he’s even more direct. He talks like the people or at least a huge proportion of them who otherwise just switch off when they hear Estuary English and a pre-programmed soundbite. His interview with Paxman was a corker. No official messaging, no buzzwords, no dancing round the issues. He put Paxo in his place. Look forward to more of that as Gordon uses him to say the things that Cabinet Minsiters can’t say.

Following on from a recent post about how some professional journalists in the US are adopting a different model online in order to survive, this latest departure in web journalism takes it down to an even more local level, with MyBallard being an online news service for a neighbourhood of Seattle.

Still, the couple behind it are life-long professional journalists, which raises the question of how good a news service as opposed to a blog - any news service - would be if there were no professional journalistic input.

 Maybe the demise of journalists has been greatly exaggerated?

A simple but relevant idea; an appropriate celebrity sporting a few tins of body paint and you’ve got a winning PR campaign.

This is exactly what we did today for the launch of the Fibre Foundation, an organisation founded to educate people on the health benefits of eating fibre. By getting cricketer and more lately Strictly Come Dancing contestant, Mark Ramprakash, to strip off and have the vital organs helped by eating fibre illustrated on his skin, we had a great photo that fitted with the overall campaign theme.

The result? More than 130 pieces of media coverage today alone. Now, please pass the wholemeal spaghetti.

The urge to save whales, turtles and mountain gorillas always benefits from the emotional impact humans feel when a species appears to be on its way out.

But when it comes to journalists, who’d've thought anyone outside the media world would care, never mind a Labour MP.

But Midlands MP, Mike O’Brien is bidding for a journalism conservation prize by accusing Trinity Mirror of “serious attacks on news, journalists and journalism” with its plans to cut jobs in Coventry and Birmingham.

It’s tough times making newspapers profitable and an alternative to keep quality journalism viable is, well, to forget the profit bit. Such is the idea of MinnPost, a Minnesota-based, not-for-profit news site that keeps journalism alive through reader donations rather than advertising alone, which - as founder Joel Kramer discusses on The Marketing Edge podcast - is no longer willing to fund quality news content.

Adopting a journalist to save them from extinction may not yet be necessary, but if ordinary people and MPs care enough to back their news gatherers that suggests a healthy society at work.

Why do I feel like someone’s trying to put me on the street?

Now, anyone can cut and paste their press release into the press release grader and get an instantaneous report on its quality and effectiveness.

Frankly, I’m not overly worried (yet) and I think it’s a bit of fun for PR practitioners to play with. I also think that Robin Wilson is a terribly polite  about it on his blog.

While I don’t agree the press release is dead (not many national journalists will say “press release? Nah? Let’s talk about it over coffee”) the press release grader doesn’t help those getting a bad score to really understand how they need to put it right. Done well - usually by professionals - the press release can be a powerful tool to spread a (operative word) good story far and wide. In fact, magazine staffs are so pressurised that a well-written release can sometimes be cut and pasted wholesale, particularly online.

Nice toy, but no substitute for real experience and good old-fashioned news sense.

Nick Faldo, golf’s iceman, was more than a little shaky in the opening ceremony speeches of this year’s Ryder Cup. And the media doesn’t miss a trick. In fact, the trick becomes the news.

Radio 5 Live this morning took great pleasure in lampooning European team captain Faldo for getting one of his team’s name wrong, for asking another whether he hailed from “Ireland or Northern Ireland” and for a sub-Muhammed Ali gag involving butterflies and bees. By contrast, the American captain, Paul Azinger, came across as “assured” and ultimately winning the PR battle.

Of course, the winning or losing will be on the green. But if the top man, in any role, is seen to be a communications liability, the media will leap on it like dingos. Often, the problem is everyone’s too scared to suggest the top guy needs to work to a brief or at least some well-rehearsed and clear messages.

Bosses have been responsible for damaging their company’s reputation and even sinking their own businesses with ill-judged comments (stand up Gerald Ratner). Politicians, who should know better, can be just as bad. Our media training friends at Perris-Myatt this week highlighted deputy leader, Harriet Harman’s response to the Times when asked if she would want Gordon Brown’s job if ousted: “I cannot remember the answer to that”, she allegedly replied.

Even the top people need a helping hand with their communications skills at times.

Recently I wrote about the rise of the Twitterati and how Twitter was becoming a way for celebrities to engage with their fans.  Incidentally after a few days of silence Andy Murray is now microblogging again.  

Today social media pioneer Neville Hobson used Twitter as a quasi IT department.  On discovering that his website had vanished, Neville or ‘Jangles’ as he is know in twitterville, turned to the fast growing online community for help.   Shortly after 8am GMT Neville posted a cheery hello followed a couple of minutes later by the following; “Whoa, looks like my blog disappeared. Someone else there instead. Wtf?”.   Just three minutes later Neville was getting advice from fellow users of the Twitter service, notably from 6consulting.  Throughout the day Neville was updating on his progress and the lack of a response from hosting company Dreamhost.  Given that Neville has over 1,700 followers on Twitter that’s a real PR issue.  By tea time the site was back up but I wonder at what cost to Dreamhost, who according to the tweets still hadn’t contacted Mr H.

With user numbers growing 422% year on year, Twitter is a phenomenally simple idea that provides seemingly limitless possibilities.  Yes it’s a social network, but you can use it as a social search tool, a promotional mechanic, a news feed or a micro diary or even for IT support.  I wonder, did anyone suggest to Neville that he switched it off and on again? 

Amid global financial meltdown, there’s hope!

At least that’s what Albert Maruggi says in his latest blog posting. I like Maruggi’s boundless optimism (listen to his Marketing Edge podcast and you can actually hear it, in spades!) and wry take on the shame seeping out of Wall Street right now in his Twittering.

But he’s got a good point. The financial services industry could do far worse (and it has done) than taking on some of the principles of social media - openness and transparency.

But while corporate America is still, as Maruggi suggests, in the early adopter stage of using social media, where does that leave the rest of us? Maybe it’s time we started to lead the States instead of taking the lead from them.

The new media world of Manchester’s bloggers came face to face with 140 years of newspaper heritage at the Manchester Evening News (MEN) last night.

But even a paper that began life in a “dingy office in Brown Street” has had to change with the times. Now housed in shiny offices, the decor is not the only thing that’s changed.

Assistant news editor, Paul Gallagher, explained how the MEN’s print, online capability and tie-up with Manchester TV station, Channel M, means that decisions on news are very much based on its suitability for the medium, though the paper tends to time the release of online news with the hard copy, so not to compete with itself.

What’s also changed is the way content comes together, combining old fashioned news hounding with readers’ online comments, video taken on reporters’ mobile phones and the work of citizen journalists. As Paul says: “The benchmark for a good story hasn’t changed. But you just have more people contributing to it.”

And the days of the “death knock” - visiting the homes of the recently bereaved in search of a story and, vitally, a photo - may be numbered with newspapers like the MEN turning to online tribute sites for the material they need.

Head of online editorial, Sarah Hartley, described the paper’s move to greater online content and gave a sneak preview of the live blogging and Twittering planned for the Labour Party Conference in Manchester, which starts this Saturday in Manchester.

Still, it was great to see some relics from the past remain, such as the MEN’s hard copy reference library (see pic).

Figures from Nielsen Online reported on Mashable show Twitter to be taking off like nobody’s business, with users growing 422% on last year and sticking around on the site for 7 minutes on average (a veritable lifetime online).

Still, Jeremiah Owyang refers to this (unsurprisingly via Twitter itself) that in the context of social media networks, Twitter’s 2.3m users is small beer when compared to the hulking 100m registered Facebook users.

So, as a Twitterer myself, I now know what it feels like to be in an official minority and a growing one at that. Makes you want to pick up a placard and demand your rights!

 STOP PRESS: Robert Scoble (again, on Twitter) says he’s seen Twitter “all over CNN”.